The short of it is that while I am plugging my project, I am not asking for your money. What I am interested in, if any of you are willing, is your criticisms of the project as it exists now. If the video sucks, say so. If you think the goal is unrealistic, suggest a more realistic goal. If something is unclear, ask for clarification.

In the past I've been pretty defensive against criticisms and it's pretty clear to me that in this case especially, I could really benefit to be open to them. So by all means, give me your honest assessment of my project. If the project doesn't interest you, please let me know if there is anything that I could change to make it more interesting to you.

Before I criticize, I just like to say that your project is a wonderful idea and I support it (if only I had money to donate to you...).

What you said in your video explained what your viewers needed to know about your project, including what is the purpose of a photosynth. At times, there may have been too many details such as your introduction on how great photography is, but that's just my opinion.

Perhaps you should include what you said in the video in your project description so that people with slow internet connections can still know the purpose of your project (also, on my first viewing of the video, I was fascinated by your great images of the Japanese house rather than listening to your video ).

The video could have better production quality, but I understand that you had limited resources to make the video.

I hope you think that my criticism is useful._________________This is my sig. Woo.

The video is so badly planned and produced that it immediately makes me question your ability as a creative. Photography, videography and production are, obviously, not necessarily correlated, but your video tells me several things immediately. 1) You either did only one take, or you didn't do nearly enough. 2) You don't care about a professional presentation. 3) For whatever reason, you don't care enough about this project enough to invest the extremely minimal amount of money it would take to make your video spectacular. 4) You're having trouble articulating your own value proposition, which leads me to believe you don't have a clear one.

Why is there no example photosynth? In lieu of that, why is there no link to your photography portfolio? Why would I ever buy into a photography project from someone who doesn't post examples of his work? Oh, wait, there's the link -- buried in the lower right, with no attention called out to it and no meaningful description of what's contained therein.

I'm at a loss as to why there aren't more photos and lengthier copy blocks in the project description. Compare your project to any project that's gotten more than 20% funded and you'll notice that yours is deficient in information and presentation.

Your ask is ridiculously high. If you're going to ask for that much money, you need to provide a clearer demonstration of need. How did you arrive at $16,000 as the magic number that will make this project happen? What, specifically, will that money be spent on? "Time and effort" is bullshit, by the way.

Check out the reward tiers for any successful project and you'll notice that there's serious, measurable value to the prizes. Kickstarter is not a money-making machine, it's hobby-enablement. If the total value of your rewards doesn't obviously approach the funding ask, it sets off a big bullshit meter.

The project's geographic bounds are limited to Champaign-Urbana. What travel expenses, exactly, are you incurring? Further, is $16,000 a realistic amount to raise from such a limited area? Even if I wanted to donate, say, $50 to this project, I have to ask myself: what is the likelihood of 320 other web-savvy people from the Champaign-Urbana region being interested enough in this project to donate money?

Reward tiers: you have too many, they're too fiscally separated, the large ones are too expensive, and none of them provide enough value to incentivize action. Take your first tier, for example. What do you mean when you say you'll dedicate a frame? Where will that dedication be visible? Will every person who sees that frame see my name? Where will the photosynth be housed? How much traffic will that page get?

Why do you jump from $15 to $50?

It's flat-out ridiculous that I have to go up to the $50 tier to get anything tangible for my money. Compare to this project. If I give you $50, I get a 4x6 print of something I could go print myself for 20 cents. If I give that person $50, I get ten silk-screen prints and a plush doll. There's simply no comparison. Notice, by the way, how clearly that project spells out the fiscal allocation.

It doesn't look like you've looked at your rewards from a potential contributor's perspective. Look at your $500 reward tier. You're basically telling us that $500 buys a scenic photoshoot with an unknown photographer. Oh, with a limit of 2,000 square feet. I booked an experienced (e.g. has done magazine covers) photographer for 2.5 hours, excluding post-production, for that much. Is your offer comparable?

For triple the money, you offer a bigger space.

For five times the money, you'll travel farther.

You asked for recommendations, so here they are: spend the time and $50 it would take to produce a significantly higher quality video. Reduce your total ask to $3,000 and outline exactly what those costs will go to. Provide significantly more detail in your project description, including quick and easy access to examples of your photography. Redo your reward tiers entirely, using more sensible increments, capping at $100, with significantly better rewards. Build the website that will house your photosynths now, so people can see where the final product will go and where their names will be displayed (assuming you keep the dedication element).

Thanks, this response is exactly what I was looking for. To be honest, the video is a bit of a sore spot for me, more than a bit, really. I paid someone to do that video for me, and everything else that I've seen them produce led me to believe I would be getting much more for my investment. Yeah, I could have done better in my own presentation, but the quality of the video could have been much better than it is and I am looking into what I can do to produce a video on my own.

For the time being, I am unable to edit my project(it appears to be a glitch and I'm hoping it will resolve soon). When I am able to, I will definitely do more to draw attention to my previous work and provide examples.

The $16K was figured from how much time it would take for me to shoot and edit enough photosynths to fulfill all of the rewards, which admittedly could be reduced significantly, but doing so would require cancelling the current project and relaunching. I'm not strictly opposed to doing that, but I wanted to have a clear idea on how I would change the project before doing that. It occurs to me that I don't need to have the rewards add up to the target so I might simply lower the goal.

I'm new to Kickstarter and it sounds as if you are not and that's exactly the perspective I was hoping to gain. I'll do what I can to add clarity to where the money is going and how the rewards work.

also the second posters nick makes it sound like some sort of positive reinforcement spambot._________________Once, at a local NOW meeting where I was the only male among about a dozen women, a feminism trivia contest was held. I came in third.